Momentum

Project
2011

Momentum shows the process of transience and the human incapability to overcome it. In a four-meter wide container an algae enriched base is the stage for pigments to perform. Slowly, drops fall from glass pipes, onto the surface, pushing one another away as they touch. The result is an ever-changing drawing, striking much resemblance with growth rings or sedimentation. By placing the glass pipes in a subsequent position, the once beautiful drawing is gently forced aside for a new one, thus creating an ever-changing timeline.

After 14 hours (7 positions) the surface is filled with drawings. It is rendered clean by printing the entire surface onto paper. The glass pipes are put back in their premier position, only to start the process again. The algae base deteriorates over a period of 4 to 5 days, in which the pigments start to behave differently. Eventually, the pigments sink straight through the base to the bottom of the container and all that is left are printed timelines – like a photograph to a memory.

‘All beauteous thing for which we live
By laws of time and space decay
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.’

– William Johnson Cory

This project was my masters graduation piece at the interfaculty ArtScience, a collaboration between the Royal Conservatory, the Royal Academy of Art and Leiden University. The work received a nomination for the STRP Talent Pit Award (honourable mention) and was longlisted for the BLOOOM Award and Prix Ars Electronica.